Posted
by
Soulskill
on Friday March 14, 2014 @04:15PM
from the guilty-as-charged dept.

SmartAboutThings writes "The European Union has voted in favor of a draft legislation which lists among the 'essential requirements' of electrical devices approved by the EU a compatibility with 'universal' chargers. According to a German MEP, this move will eliminate 51,000 tonnes of electronic waste. The draft law was approved by an overwhelming majority: 550 votes to 12. At the moment, according to estimates, there are around 30 different types of charger on the market, but manufacturers have two years at their disposal to get ready for the new restriction."

Wait, isn't this the SECOND time [europa.eu] this standard was imposed, and didn't apple get a pass last time?

Why will it be different this time?

I'm betting Apple will issue another "E-waste" adapter to their ridiculous 30pin, and thumb their nose at this rule just like the last time.

You are aware that by using the native adapter, Apple is able to operate outside the power ranges which the power-over-USB folks were willing to support because it would have been more expensive to make the power adapters smart enough to negotiate amperage with the device up to the levels Apple runs at, right?

In other words, the power-over-USB standard is pretty stupidly low powered, if you want to support faster charge cycles, so using this universal adapter and the "E-waste" adapter dongle is just going to mean Apple devices charge a lot slower in Europe than they do in the rest of the world. Just like all non-Apple devices don't tend to support fast charging, for lack of the ability to negotiate a much higher amperage between the charger and the device.

So it's not "thumbing their nose", so much as it is "can't you power-over-USB people ever agree on a useful standard?".

Regular USB will do 10 watts, 5 volts 2 amps. My Samsung phone uses just such a charger. Need more? The USB Power Delivery standard, which needs different cables, will handle up to 100 watts, that being 20v 5a.

USB PD was standardized in July 2012 so it has been around for awhile.

Not necessarily. Some cheap cables don't have enough conductors to safely carry 2A. Also USB-PD is a power delivery extension that allows cables to identify their current limit using the ID pin originally added for OTG. These cables have the standard USB2 or 3 icon enclosed in a "battery" outline.

Maybe he just meant "conductor". Or maybe he meant strands. But it's a fact that some cables with which devices will charge just fine at 5V1A will not supply 5V2A to a device successfully. I like to think the device is detecting low voltage on a brief test charge and then giving up, but probably it's just trying over and over again to charge and failing forever. Even the 7W for the Nexus 7 2nd has been a problem.

Not necessarily. Some cheap cables don't have enough conductors to safely carry 2A. Also USB-PD is a power delivery extension that allows cables to identify their current limit using the ID pin originally added for OTG. These cables have the standard USB2 or 3 icon enclosed in a "battery" outline.

There is a bug in the downstream power standard Intel chipset when used for USB-PD. You can't actually run it at 2A, or you have to only run it that way in ports that won't let you charge and communicate with the device at the same time, as a hard-wired option. We found this out designing the initial ChromeBox, which is why two of the back USB ports are not really that useful for charging.

If you're using something other than an Intel chipset in your PC, yeah; the TI USB-PD/OTG implementation works, although I don't think there's any laptop hardware or desktop hardware that uses it. I think it's mostly used in drives and drive enclosures.

Apple tends to get away with it because they use discrete electronics separate from the USB controller to handle downstream charging; of course, this makes their hardware more expensive, but it works, which some people value.

I'm not sure how many power bricks are intelligent enough to do the USB-PD negotiations.

There's some rather nifty drawing board plans for 100W power deliver for things like monitors, but so far, they've only been been demonstrates as FPGAs, rather than someone spinning them into silicon. The article on it is here: http://www.theinquirer.net/inq... [theinquirer.net]

Now, the EU is mandading the other end of the charging cable, the actual, physical charger is plugs into. Meaning, you'll only need a single charger, with a USB port in it, to charge your flip phone, your 4" mini-smartphone, your 6" phablet, and your 10" tablet.

Right now, each device has it's own charger, with it's own specs (how many volts at how many amps). And you generally can't charge a tablet using an older phone charger.

So you end up with a handful of different chargers in your drawer that you have to pick through to charge each device, or you end up with a drawer full of chargers you never use as you just plug everything into the most power charger you have (generally the one for the tablet).

Standardising on a single charger would eliminate all the extra chargers gathering dust in people's junk drawers.

Wasn't that the other way around ? They standardised first the wall part to USB 5V which more or less all constructor (including Apple) followed. Now they want to standardize the other end of the cable, the actual plug in the phone.

BTW, isn't micro-USB limited to some ridiculously small Amp compared to the 2A / 5A / 15A that new devices draw from the cable now ?

BTW, isn't micro-USB limited to some ridiculously small Amp compared to the 2A / 5A / 15A that new devices draw from the cable now ?

Yeah.

The way you negotiate over 500ma in power is you have special docking cable with resistors on it that say to the device "I am a special docking cable with resistors of the right values on these pins; you should feel free to do a data negotiation over my ordinarily not connected data lines to talk the charger into giving you more amps". To do that, your special docking connector, like the one on the Zune and the one on Apple devices has to have more than the 4 pins in a standard USB connector. It kin

This is incorrect. There is no bidirectional negotiation between chargers and devices, nor are there any magic extra pins (at least for pretty much all Android and Apple products - dunno about Zune).

What there is is one USB charging standard, that basically says one thing and one thing only (that matters): if the data pins are shorted together (but otherwise not connected to anything), then the port is a Dedicated Charging Port. A DCP must meet certain voltage/current curve ranges and may be engineered to supply anywhere from 500mA to 1.5A (or more), with the voltage dropping as the device exceeds the charger's maximum. Devices are simply supposed to regulate current draw upwards until the voltage drops below a threshold, indicating the charger's capability. No digital negotiation takes place. Devices are limited to 1.5A charging current, which is quite typical for modern devices (and significantly better than the 500mA of a non-charging port).

There is a newer USB Power Delivery specification that is much more recent, supports higher powers, probably uses more complex negotiation (I haven't read it), and nothing implements it yet.

Then there's what Apple does - they have an incompatible implementation that uses resistors on the data pins in the charger to signal its current capability. Different resulting voltages mean different current levels. This is completely incompatible with the USB charging standard. Recent Apple devices (since the iPhone 3G or so) do support DCP chargers (to some extent - some charge more slowly, and I don't know about larger iPads?), but non-Apple devices will only charge at 500mA or worse from Apple chargers.

I'm glad they are doing this but I hope they also mandate Qi for wireless charging. It seems to be the de-facto standard but it wouldn't surprise me if we see a few more proprietary systems in the next few years.

Cables are so old fashioned. I charge and sync wirelessly now, never plug my phone in.

Galaxy Tab. Sony PRS-505(?)*, Sony PRS-600, Motorola Xoom, Dell Streak. You asked about phones, but the new law applies to electronic devices in general.

* This Sony device is SO stupid that if you try charging it with a standard wall-wart microUSB (maybe it was mini) supply, it will think it is connected to an active USB host, repeatedly attempt to negotiate the power, refuse to use the power it is being given, and eventually stop negotiating because the battery is dead. Absolutely brain damaged piece of

My coworker assures me that this a known case of quantum superposition at macro scales. The USB plug is simultaneously in two different orientations at the same time. It was formerly only thought to happen to SVGA connectors when viewed from the side while uncomfortably squatting under a desk.

Because microusb has an absolutely atrocious, finnicky connector. I hope they use practically anything but microusb.

Apples Lightning connector would be great, actually, or something very similar. Near unbreakably solid, easy to plug in our out, can be plugged in either way...

I agree - microUSB has those 2 clip-ons which are very delicate & once the spring action is gone, it becomes useless, as I found out w/ a car cord. I'd prefer the miniusb - nobody had issues w/ that - have no idea why they had to change it. Apple's lightning conductor is an improvement on their 32-pin

at work we were looking at the chargers for different android phones and they were all different specs

Galaxy Note 3 uses MicroUSB 3.0 as standard charger (2.0A), but should still charge at a slower rate using a standard MicroUSB cord.

Most devices will draw the max the charger will allow if they see the data channels shorted. I assume the charger will go into current limit (voltage will start to drop) once the maximum output of the charger is reached. Different charges from different phones may be rated different, but most still should provide a charge (even if slower). If plugged into a USB host (computer) it may be limited to 500mA or less.

Most devices will draw the max the charger will allow if they see the data channels shorted. I assume the charger will go into current limit (voltage will start to drop) once the maximum output of the charger is reached. Different charges from different phones may be rated different, but most still should provide a charge (even if slower). If plugged into a USB host (computer) it may be limited to 500mA or less.

Good chargers will current limit. Bad chargers blow up. We found that out the hard way trying to

You're average computer can't charge your phone/tablet at full speed anyway, a wall charger - maybe.Trying to make them work well together will always be a challenge and will always have improvements on the Data side. (Next year there will be a cable with higher speeds that will have transmission formats that are incompatible with last years model(usb2, usb3, lightening, fibre optic, etc?)But I don't want that to force me to change my chargers every time there is an update in data transmission, at least not

"This is a backwards step because imposing a single charger stifles innovation, curbs research, and may impose extra costs on the consumer. The alternative and better action is to encourage diversity, competition and greater development..."

Seriously? How much "diversity" and "innovation" do you need in terms of a charger?

And yet, despite having returned no MPs whatever they're treat as though they deserve equal news coverage. I can see why the tabloids like to keep them around - they're good for a laugh and that sells papers - but the BBC shouldn't even give them the time of day. Unfortunately, because they're given credence people seem to think they're credible.

What happens when you mandate a single charger suitable for vehicles like the Leaf, then you have Tesla attempting to produce a long-range vehicle? The 'superchargers' that Tesla is building overpowers most 'fast chargers' out there by a substantial amount.

Do you mandate that all chargers reach the Tesla's level, or do you cripple Tesla?

Honestly, with the larger tablets I wonder if 12V might not be a better voltage for them.

In USB land there is the new power spec that can deliver 100w over a standard usb 2.0 cable. It ups the voltage and amperage to get there and is negotiated.

As to Tesla, forcing them to have the standard port does increase there costs but also means it can charge anywhere. It does not stop them from having a second faster port or letting there port negotiate for faster charging up to the voltage/amperage limits of the design.

I was simply trying to make an analogy. As for the standard port, part of the problem is if you require all chargers to be of a certain power level, while it might not end up in the dump, you're using higher power chargers for lower power devices, which generally uses more resources.

A little flexibility is necessary. For tablets and such, perhaps have a limit? IE if the device is over X power for charging it doesn't have to use the standard interface(and will eventually get it's own)?

"How much "diversity" and "innovation" do you need in terms of a charger?"

If you design a battery system that can accept a higher charging current, you may need a charger that have power levels and signaling to request those power levels that are not in the present spec for the one true charger. (This actually happened.)

If you design a phone that can drive a wider variety of outputs, you may need more pins that the one true connector has. (This actually happened.)

I hate having to try one way to plug in the cable, then flip it over, then flip it over again before finally getting it right. (It's more challenging than it sounds with a baby in one arm). That's one thing Apple got right.

Agreed, if there is a 50/50 chance of me getting it correct the first time, I actually have a 100% chance of it not working on the first try. I like the functionality of Apple's new connector because it works with either side up. But my favorite charger was for my Nokia 8310. It was round and very easy to insert.

This is what the European Union really does - they set standards so stuff works all over Europe, across borders and across vendors. Like GSM phones. In the past, over 20 years they moved the 220V and 240V countries to 230V. That was completed in 2003. Trying to get the whole EU to use the same AC power plug, though, was not successful.

This is what the European Union really does - they set standards so stuff works all over Europe, across borders and across vendors. Like GSM phones. In the past, over 20 years they moved the 220V and 240V countries to 230V. That was completed in 2003. Trying to get the whole EU to use the same AC power plug, though, was not successful.

So when will the Europoean Union mandate a single spoken language and that all cars must drive on the same side of the road?

Taking a 240V +/- 6% country and making it a 230V +10%/-6% country whilst not making any changes to the actual supply voltage doesn't sound all that much like a success story. (220V countries became 230V +6%/-10% and all new devices are designed for 230V +/-10%)

I have a cell phone which is neither dumb nor smart but inbetween, and I can't get the pictures out of it (it has a webcam) or music into it. The memory card is proprietary micro "memory stick" (ha!), I don't have a bluetooth module on my PC, the one thing I can plug it in is the mains charger : power only, not data transfer.

Such a pain in the ass! (sending or configuring MMS doesn't seem to work)I'm stuck with a useless webcam, sure I could order a bluetooth module or a special cable but it's an extra expe

I have used iPods with the dock-connector, the original iPhone and every iPhone and iPad up to the iPhone 5s now. I collected a pile of chargers and cables and they all are used, still. I'm sure that the charger of my very first iPhone is used everyday. There is no better investment into cables and chargers I have made within the last decade. Similar, but not as good, with the Powerbooks. Most of the chargers have had a very long life, and my very first Magsafe-Charger is still in use, d

Funny, my Android phone uses a common charger. Apple does not, so I don't buy from them (among other reasons). That's how a free market works. The problem is that too many people aren't willing to give up their precious iPhones in protest to Apple's greedy business practices of using expensive proprietary software. I guarantee you if the majority of Apple's customers stopped buying their products, Apple would start changing. But they don't, so Apple has no reason to stop doing what they are doing.
Cor

Funny, my Android phone uses a common charger. Apple does not, so I don't buy from them (among other reasons). That's how a free market works.

Android phones use a common charger because the EU started pushing for that standard years ago, not because of a free market.
Apple signed on to the micro-usb 5V standard in Europe back in '09 and introduced the necessary adapters a few years later.

My mum just bought a brand new Nokia 100 for Â£9, including SIM card and charger. The charger has a special Nokia proprietary connector on it, not USB. If USB were the cheapest option I'm sure they would have used it, but I imagine they are actually hoping to rip her off on spare cables and chargers. Fortunately I already have a USB adapter, otherwise it would have gone back to the shop.

Until recently, all Apple devices used a common charger. At some point in the not-too-distant future, all Apple devices will use a common charger again.

So, by platform, Android isn't that much different than iOS.

Apple made some design decisions vis-a-vis their connector. You don't have to agree with them, but they had some specifications that they wanted to meet that USB didn't and still doesn't allow them to. (Having a reversible connector that doesn't need to be aligned a specific way is a perfectly reaso

Politicians don't even come close to corporate officers in their ability to line their own pockets and to set up a self-sustaining reaction to keep the money flowing in. If corporations are like a professional football league, politicians are like those youth leagues organized by the YMCA...

Because wireless charging is in its infancy and has a huge loss rate.Why should I charge my phone wireless (does my hotel have such a charger or do I need to carry my own?) when I can use a wire and a plug and save 75% of the costs?

Because the corporations couldn't stop squabbling like children overdue for naptime long enough to come to an agreement. So papa government had to stand them in opposite corners and make the decision for them.

Same reason each country has a standard railroad track, a standard power outlet, etc. Letting industries decide on mutually incompatible standards largely serves to lock in consumers and also creates great inefficiencies in the economy due to incompatbility. Standardization would allow business like cafes & airports to offer charging solutions that fit all their customers, and it would produce less physical waste.

There's nothing unreasonable about different companies having different standards. This is none of the governments' business. It's regulation where there should be none. The state should stick to their core business of protecting people from the initiation of force.

I think the EU will have to show that either Micro USB can do everything that the Lightning connector can. Or they'd have to show that current phones can fit both a MicroUSB AND a Lightning connector. Or they'd have to allow an adapter between a MicroUSB charger and a lightning connector on a phone.

Otherwise, it'd be the EU regulating to reduce features on a popular device, without any safety rationale for doing so. I don't think that would wash.

99% of the time my iPhone is "plugged in" it is plugged into a wall connector for charging. Every connector can do that.No one prevents a phone from having two connectors, one for power and one for "what ever reason the lightning connector is used for".I mean: you should be able to synch via bluetooth or wifi... why do I need a special cable? Because it is 5% faster than an ordinary USB? I doubt it...

The only actual features of the lightning connector are that it can be used by people who have suffered too much brain damage to understand spatial orientation and Apple can use dirty tricks to make sure only the unique Apple special snowflake cable can work.

It's not worth fixing with a proprietary socket that actively detects generic versions and rejects them while more than doubling the cost. It would be worth fixing with a fully open design. Or it could be fixed with color coding the shell around the connectors. It could even be fixed by putting a bump on the top of the connector to make orientation clear.

At the same time, I don't see a bunch or people ripping their hair out because their house key needs a particular orientation.

In other words, you accept that it *IS* better, but you are prepared to put up with the currently worse open designs, because they are open. Much as the users of desktop Linux are using an inferior OS on the basis that openness trumps usability for them.

Or it could be fixed with color coding the shell around the connectors.

It would help, but it's still inferior to a design that doesn't need looking at.

At the same time, I don't see a bunch or people ripping their hair out because their house key needs a particular orientation.

Because the keyed side and the smooth side is so very clear, with or without looking. And they use their house key often enough that the up/down orientation of the key is remembe

The only actual features of the lightning connector are that it can be used by people who have suffered too much brain damage to understand spatial orientation

One way sockets that are hard to get the right way around first time annoy people. If you haven't noticed that, then you are very unobservant. If you think that kind of annoyance isn't worth fixing with new sockets, then you are an idiot.

Good plug & socket designs go in the first time, and don't require looking. Take the jack plug as an old, yet excellent example.

Yeah, I totally hate HDMI cables too, they suck! So what if I can get pure digital HD video and audio on the same tiny cable, as opposed to the five required for component (with stereo sound and lesser vidoe quality). I just hate having to actually look at the cable and port I'm trying to plug it into: I'd much rather just jab them together blindly until it goes in!

Same goes for DVI, S-Video and even VGA! Yeah, screw them all, I'll stick to composite, man! Fight the power!

This is not about the mechanical connector (you can always use an adapter cable). This is about those device manufacturers that verify via USB protocol that the charger is made by them too. So the device won't work with anything else regardless of the fact that the cable fits. The idea is that the check should be on the maximum current supported by the charger, not on its make and model.

All the existing USB connectors are about to be replaced too. Type A, type B, micro, mini, full sized; they are all being superseded by the new type C.

The USB IF hasn't showed any pictures or diagrams yet, but their design goals are that it be similar in size to micro, be reversible (like a Lightning connector), use the same connector on both ends (solving the printer problem, but with type A to C cables used for backwards compatibility), support USB 3.1 (with extra pins for forwards compatibility), and sup

Look at the 3.5 mm headphone jack for inspiration. Look at the Lightning connector for inspiration. Hell, look at the old mini Christmas light bulbs for inspiration. Make the end plug solid, and connect to pins/connectors around the slot that it pl

The USB3 micro plug, as seen on some Samsung phablets, is a micro-USB2 plug + an extra plug. So, you can either connect a micro-USB2 cable and get USB2 speeds, or you can connect a micro-USB3 cable and get USB3 speeds.

However, it's a HUGE connector, almost twice as wide as a micro-USB2 connector.

Except that's how it was and not only did every manufacturer have their own proprietary charger, but they tended to change them every couple of handsets just to keep things interesting. Your options were either to carry your charger everywhere with you (which somewhat defeats the point of having a mobile phone) or just hope that if you needed to charge your phone outside of your house that someone nearby had exactly the same charger as you so you could borrow it.

As an American Apple user, I hate the fact that Apple doesn't use the same charger / data cable as everyone else and that, worse, my iPhone 5 isn't even compatible with my iPhone 3 charger. It's an overpriced, short POS that has a pointless chip in it to prevent third party cables from working properly. It's also not water-resistant (which is great in case you accidentally drop the end of it into a glass of water on your desk). All in all, Apple's new charger has significa

From what it sounds like, this legislation is simply the next stage of a law that has been around for years already, and with which Apple has complied since 2011.

Various European standards bodies made legally-binding agreements with Nokia, RIM, Apple, et al. back in 2009 to standardize on micro-USB within two years. Apple complied in 2011 by including a Lightning->micro-USB adapter in the box with all of its European models, and has done so for the last three years. Since that time, the rule has bubbled up the legislative hierarchy and is about to take effect across the EU for all manufacturers, regardless of if they were a party to the original agreements or not.

I.e. This law changes nothing at all for Apple. Moreover, even if it did, the timeline in the summary is incorrect. Member states of the EU have two years to adopt the legislation internally. Manufacturers have an additional year on top of that to abide by it. So even if Apple were forced to replace Lightning with micro-USB, it wouldn't need to do so until 2017.

No they won't. read it in the newspaper that it will be implemented by 2017 and that if they don't, they will be first sued and then forbidden to sell to the EU. My guess is that they will comply with the charger part, but to transfer data, you still need to buy a 200EUR cable from them if your old one breaks.

Over the last decade, everyone has already standardized on USB as the default. Everything I need to charge can be charged off a USB port, and I only need 2 different cables, one for my wife's iPod, and a micro USB for everything else.

The reason this is a terrible idea, is that when someone does come up with a better connector (for example, Apple's Lightning connector), they may not be able to produce/sell it because the standard has already been set. As usual, the EU is late to the party and trying to sol